Traveling and the first day

I wrote this last night obviously:

6/11/09 11:53pm Jordan time; 4:52pm EST

WARNING SUPER LONG ENTRY AHEAD

The past 24 (or 26, really) hours have been completely absurd, unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I don’t have internet access in my room, but I’m typing this up now to add to my blog later. Yeah.

We all met at the Ramada Hotel right near JFK Airport for our orientation. I got to meet a few people before orientation started and off the bat everyone was really nice. Some are nerdier than others but everyone is obviously very intelligent, motivated and, so far at least, pleasant to be around. I connected to some more than others, but again, there’s no one that stands out in a negative way.

Orientation was relatively pointless and way too long, especially because we had been mailed a giant 115pg orientation manual that all of us read beforehand. We got a pretty good Indian dinner from the hotel, though.

After orientating for a while we headed to JFK, where we were stuck waiting for WAY too long for our luggage to get checked. Eventually we got through that, then waited on the chaotic line that was security. Lots of Arabic was thrown around already; we were the only people of non-Middle Eastern descent (other than the few Arabs in our group) in the terminal.

Finally we boarded the plane and headed off. We got in flight meals which I’ve never experienced before. I also got to bond with the girl, Lilly, that was sitting next to me, and watched Paul Blart: Mall Cop with Arabic subtitles. Sort of slept, sort of didn’t. There were TONS and I mean TONS of young children on our flight, many of whom obviously did not enjoy the trip and cried at various points. At about 4am EST one child even began SCREAMING non-stop for at least 15 minutes. I don’t know if this is an Arab stereotype or not, but I noticed that a lot of children ran somewhat wild and were not really tended to like you’d see an American parent when a child was crying. Like an American parent will get embarrassed when their child acts up in public, while many Arab parents I noticed chose to ignore it. Just an observation.

For as long as the flight was though, it could’ve been worse. Getting through customs and getting our baggage was DEFINITELY worse. Clusterfuck is the only word I could use to describe it, and that doesn’t even describe how bad it was. People blatantly cut lines and luckily the New York in me kicked in and I was able to get myself and a friend through before another family cut us off. But yeah. It blew. And two people, including my roommate (her name is Stephanie, she’s from UVA and is cool and the only other girl in Lower Intermediate) got some of their bags lost. I think they’ll be returned tomorrow though.

From there we took a bus to a supermarket, where Steph and I bought some food/water for tomorrow. Paying in Jordanian currency was an adventure, but even with a shitty exchange rate, I got a 6 pack of HUGE water bottles, pita bread, 2 green apples (they were the most expensive thing, go figure), a tub of hummus, and a coke for about $6.

Back on the bus to Irbid. Made it to our apartments. Me and Steph’s is on the 3^rd floor which was a huge pain with luggage but isn’t that big of a deal. I’ll post pictures of it soon.

That’s all for now! Just letting you all know I’m safe and very excited for my future in Jordan.

Right now:

Just ate. So full. Kinda tired. Probably because I didn't sleep last night. Thursday nights are big here and the city was loud and the birds were REALLY LOUD but no worries. Internet costs money wtf.